BON organises two-day workshop in Bauchi
……… Stakeholders’ laments media bias towards certain political, religious groups
A two-day workshop organised by Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria North-East Zone B, on contemporary issues in news and programme production observed that social media platforms and Citizen Journalism, have emerged as important sources of news and information to the people in the zone.
However, the spread of misinformation and fake news through these platforms pose significant challenge to peaceful co-existence in the zone.
The observation which was contained in a communique issued at the end of the workshop signed by chairman BON North East Zone B, Alhaji Yusuf Isa, and Chairman, communique drafting committee, Rebecca Caleb Maina, noted that media organisations needed to navigate this landscape carefully to ensure accurate reporting and to counter false narratives.
The communique also observed that some media organisations seem to have affiliations or biases towards certain political or religious groups, leading to skewed reporting or exclusion of certain issues and perspectives from some of their reports and programmes and that tends to contribute to misinformation and further exacerbates existing tensions within the zone.
According to the communique the workshop made resolutions that training and retraining of Journalists on ethics and emergence of social media should be sustained and there is need for journalists to acquaint themselves with new trends in news and programme production to enable them cope with emerging issues and challenges in the society.
Journalists need to embrace technology and create contents to news and programme producers in the zone. Journalists and media organisations face threats from insurgents, making it difficult to report on the conflict and its impact on local communities. The fear of reprisals often.
The communique also stated that Journalists should be conversant with relevant laws and ethics of their profession as well as the editorial policies of their organisations, understand their audience and cultivate positive relationships with them in news and programmes as well multimedia production, in order to reposition themselves within the complex system of modern media practice.
The Communique added that media organisations should develop guidelines on content-sharing and the use of social media platforms,adopt factchecking, descriptive, investigative, data-based solution, literary and interpretative journalism.
Media organisations should provide adequate security and welfare for staff to ensure optimum productivity and Journalists should refrain from the use of provocative language that may glorify conflict and violence.
State Governments should address the various problems militating against the smooth operations of their media organizations.
The workshop held at the Nigeria Union of Journalists, press Centre Bauchi had in attendance Bauchi State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Chief executives of some media organisations including the acting Director-General of the Gombe Media Corporation Alhaji Abubakar Usman Turaki.
Participants were drawn from Yobe Broadcasting Corporation, Yobe State Television, Gombe Media Corporation, Bauchi Radio Corporation, Bauchi Television Authority, NAS FM Yola, Adamawa Television Corporation, AlAnsar Radio Maiduguri, Albarka Radio Bauchi and Taraba State Television.
Six papers were presented and discussed on issues bordering on the mass media and good governance in democracy, the mass media and diversity, journalism ethics and contemporary challenges; changing tides in news and programme production; the changing nature of the broadcast audience, and story-telling and cross-media production
